X-Message-Number: 5860
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: UK lawyers objections to cryonics
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 15:29:39 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!


This is Thomas Donaldson, who sued for the right to be suspended before "death",
but has been lucky enough to remain alive.


First: one PRIMARY comment to the lawyers in Britain who seem to be disturbed by
cryonics. Cryonics is far better than the current practise, in many medical 

cases, of keeping someone alive but unconscious on a respirator, etc. First, it
costs a whole lot less (look at the figures). Second, if it succeeds then 
the person will be recovered whole and able to cope for themselves; if it
fails then less will have been spent in that failure than in many (no, not all)
cases of ordinary medicine. When a lot of medicine is paid for by the state,
ultimately through taxes, this may not SEEM an issue, but thta is an illusion.

Sure, the National Health may pay for the current kind of care, while the
individual must pay for cryonics. If you look purely at the cost to the UK
government, cryonics wins again (that is, if you allow suspension before formal
declaration of "death"). The cost to the UK government goes down to ZERO. The
individual patient handles all further costs.

What? You think that the individual patients shouldn't be able to spend their
money as they wish, and that it all should go to the UK government? Fine. You 
should not be able to spend YOUR money as you wish either: sauce for the goose
should be sauce for the gander. And if you really want to press that line
politically, don't be surprised to see the UK government telling you what to
do with your money too. You gave it the power, why should it stop with 
cryonicists? Maybe it should control the income and spending of solicitors and
barristers too.

Now that I've pointed out the advantages of cryonics in the short term, I will
discuss the long term and the very long term. Of course, money saved can be
important because it will go elsewhere, into investments and sometimes even to
lawyers. But behind cryonics there is an attitude which would support much
more work on the main problem with causes "death": ageing. Read up on this:
if you REALLY want to do away with cancer or heart disease, you're going to 
have to work on aging. So people will live for longer and longer, and of course
cost National Health less and less --- while producing income which can be
taxed. Not only that, but the payment of pensions can easily go way down: 
with fewer helpless unemployable old people (all of the old people are now 
entirely ept and can work for themselves) you have fewer costs. Not only that,
but the cost of education will also go down: don't claim that birthrates will
stay the same whenever health goes up, they never have in the past (read up on
this one too). So all those resources, to make people to replace the ones that
have died, to care for people while they are old and decrepit and cannot care
for themselves, will all become resources to be used for other purposes 
entirely. You forget this because you are so used to it that you do not notice
it at all. 

You may claim that we are obsessed by Death. I find such a claim bizarre
whenever I turn on my TV or look at a movie. Very rarely do I see a film or
show about lesser crimes such as theft or fraud: always murder, murder, murder.
How many mystery stories depend on murder, and how many on (say) auto theft?
What do so many people read on the bus, in the train, on airplanes? Murder
mysteries. (Sure, the English kind are a bit less brutal, but it is killing
nonetheless). Guns. Shooting PEOPLE. Or sometimes with gentility, poisoning 
them. 

WE are supposed to be obsessed with death?!!!? What has really happened is that
we have decided that we can actually DO something about both ageing and death,
and cryonics is one of the steps we take. Indeed, we would rather do something
which might fail for us particularly, but which can be improved (and our work
and donations are improving it and will continue to do so)... far rather do
something than sit passively waiting for that death.

Not only that, but when an animal (or a human being) is passive in that way,
it is a sign that they are deeply depressed. And so now I get to the point of
the VERY long term benefits of cryonics: no one will want to read murder 
mysteries, or think of murder in the same way. NO ONE will be obsessed by
Death. A depression which has sat on human beings for centuries will lift.

And if you prefer your depression and your obsession, then I can only feel
sorry for you.

			Best wishes, and yes, a long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson


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